


Underneath

by distantsun



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Dissociation, Experimental Style, F/M, Face Punching, Kellogg!Nick, M/M, Memory Den shenanigans, Might get really fucked up later, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mind Control, Mind Games, Mindfuck, Multi, Nickellogg, Pining, Possession, Prewar!Nick backstory, Rating May Change, Robot Feels, Robot/Human Relationships, Surrealism, implied Irma/Amari, we'll see, wireplay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-05-26 08:23:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6231316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distantsun/pseuds/distantsun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It wasn't just a mnemonic impression.</i>
</p><p>In which Conrad Kellogg is the ghost in Nick Valentine's machine, and Nora is the wrench in the works. (I promise the writing within isn't nearly as tortured as that metaphor-- although the characters might be!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We Are Not Who We Are

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheFamousFireLadyM](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFamousFireLadyM/gifts).



Kellogg remembered dying.

He remembered the woman’s face, twisted with anger and terror, the last thing he saw before the burst of pain and light, the heavy darkness folding over him. Dirt streaked with tears on her cheeks, the gun held in a shaking hand. Then-- nothing. Death.

All things considered, he thought, he’d been through worse.

\--

It started as an itch. A prickling, under his skin, at the back of his neck, a feeling like being watched in an empty room.

Nick Valentine was, of course, intimately familiar with the concept of feeling _wrong_ in one’s own skin. He’d had a long time to get used to the careworn, weatherbeaten machine he was haunting these days, though, and he was hardly ever bothered by phantom urges to eat or sleep or the sudden panicked feeling that there ought to be a _beating heart_ in place of the pump in his chest anymore.

This was different. He was distracted, off-kilter. Basic processes ran slower than normal, or stopped entirely. Flashes of memory and emotion, like the flashes he sometimes got of the other Nick’s life but rougher and less familiar, _thoughts of hot dry places and a quiet burning anger,_ hit him hard and then slipped away before he could really process them.

He ran diagnostics over and over. They showed that his system was under stress-- coolant pressure higher than normal, pump working overtime, motors overheating-- but offered no explanation for the symptoms.

People were beginning to notice. Ellie asked constantly if he was okay, and seemed less and less convinced every time he said he was. People around the city were kinder to him than usual, kinder and more cautious, in a way that called to mind Nick’s memories of dealing with the very elderly. And Nora… the concern in her dark eyes, the fear for him when he stumbled or checked out during a conversation or missed a clear shot, as if he was actually a _person_ , as if he was _real_ , made his chest hurt.

Nick hadn’t thought about dying much, as a synth. But he’d been alive a long time, and he knew nothing lasted forever. Perhaps he was simply running down, his body reaching its natural limit.

If he thought of the moment of disorienting darkness he’d experienced in the Memory Den, coming back to himself just in time to see Nora’s face twist in horror-- if he realized that that was the moment when all his problems had begun-- he didn’t dwell on it. It was a thought that didn’t want to be thought, and so he didn’t think it.

He began to prepare for the worst.

\--

Mostly, Kellogg watched.

His survival instinct told him that the longer he remained an unnoticed stowaway in Valentine’s brain, the better off he would be. For all he knew, it would take one return visit to the Memory Den to wipe him out of the old synth’s systems, bringing this strange second life to an abrupt end. So he tried to keep Valentine’s mind off the subject with whatever limited influence he had, and he watched.

When he tried to think about where he was, _what_ he was, he was overcome by waves of existential nausea that threatened to sweep him away, so he didn’t think about it, much. He could see through Valentine’s optics, feel through his sensors, and ride the flow of data that represented the synth’s thoughts and personality and emotions-- but he was still himself, bodiless and unmoored, but himself. He held on to that.

He was learning a lot about his host. Valentine thought he might be dying, which was amusing, and he wasn’t sure if he _could_ die because he didn’t think he was really alive, which was just sort of sad. The synth’s self-loathing was deeper than anyone probably suspected, almost as deep as his painfully sincere devotion to justice and drive to help the helpless. It was almost more light and goodness than Kellogg could stand, but there was a darkness in Valentine, too, buried deep and locked away. It was where he kept the memories, vivid as a holotape, of what had been done to Detective Nick Valentine before the war-- the lies, the corruption, _Jenny._ It was where he kept the anger he wouldn’t let himself feel when someone he tried to help looked at him with disgust, spat _filthy synth_ in his face.

He kept other interesting things buried there, too. Beneath his pathetic adoration of that woman from the vault, his old-fashioned and nearly patronizing chivalry and protectiveness toward her, were feelings of an entirely less appropriate nature. Things he wanted to do to her that he could only acknowledge to himself in the middle of the night, if ever. It was, Kellogg thought, almost _sweet_ , the way Valentine thought his little fantasies were so shameful.

Kellogg lived there, among the things Nick Valentine didn’t want to think about, and considered his next steps.

\--

“Nick!”

Nick turned, toward Nora’s sharp cry, just in time to see the raider’s lead pipe sweeping a descending arc toward his face. He fumbled for his gun, limbs feeling heavy and unresponsive. A bullet whizzed past his cheek-- he felt his circuits spark to life, his combat subroutines flooding his system with the electronic equivalent of adrenaline-- and the raider went limp, pipe flopping harmlessly to the floor.

Lowering her pistol, Nora stared at him across the ruined apartment. Her face was drawn, breath coming quick and shallow. “Nick,” she began.

“I know.” His voice came out harsher, more clipped than intended. He made an effort to soften it. “I know, partner. Got to be more careful. Least we know there’s nothing wrong with _your_ reflexes, huh?”

Nora didn’t even smile. “That’s not the first close call you’ve had lately. Are you sure--”

“Sure I’m sure,” he cut in, striding purposefully up the makeshift ramp of fallen debris that led up to the second floor of the building. “Let’s just find our man and get out of here. I promise I’ll run some diagnostics when we get back.”

“All right, all right. I’ll catch up on some light reading tonight. Your eyes provide such nice ambient lighting when you’re all zoned out.” She brushed against his arm on the way past him, the gentle teasing and the contact meant to reassure. But she stayed close, almost smotheringly close, and her forehead was still etched with worry.

They were on the trail of a kid named Fowler. His sister, thin and pale with dark circles under her eyes, had come to Nick with a tale of neglectful parents, starvation and raider attacks that ended with her missing brother last being seen in the company of a raider gang leader named Stain ( _such charming nomenclature_ , Nora had said, earning a raised eyebrow and a _nice vocabulary, kid_ from Nick). They’d traced Stain’s gang to the apartment building they inhabited, and, as most dealings with raiders did, it had declined relatively quickly into a shootout.

Nora provided covering fire as he kicked down door after door, not stopping to scavenge, not even picking up the loose cigarette boxes he normally hoarded. He knew Nora must have noticed his uncharacteristic silence, the absence of his usual wisecracks to lighten the mood, and was probably filing it away as another piece of evidence that something was very wrong with him. Some days, she was nearly as good a detective as he was.

They found Stain crouched behind one of the crudely constructed barriers that characterized raider lairs, his status as leader clear from his enhanced armor. An explosive burst of minigun fire sent Nick and Nora scrambling and rolling for cover.

Staying down, he watched Nora ready herself with closed eyes and a few deep breaths before popping out of cover, taking aim and landing a perfect shot to the raider’s arm, forcing him to drop the heavy gun. She was back behind cover practically before the bullet even hit. Even now, even-- _dying--_ distracted, Nick was mesmerized by the way she moved.

“Nick. _Now!_ ” she shouted, and he shook himself, sprinting forward to haul the injured raider out of hiding-- and away from his weapon-- before he could recover.

“Hands off, freak!” Stain swung his uninjured arm in a wide arc, the spiked armor on his forearms scraping at Nick’s already torn neck, broken sensors firing off confused messages to his processor. He ignored it, ignored everything and hauled the man up against a wall, tearing his helmet off and tossing it aside.

“Looking for a kid named Fowler,” he growled.

Under his mask, under the matted hair and the old and new scars on his face, Stain looked surprisingly young, but the hatred that twisted his features was ageless. He spat in Nick’s face, kicking, struggling in the detective’s grip like a trapped cat. “Don’t know anything. Let go _let go!_ ”

Nick got his elbow under the raider’s chin and pushed his head back against the wall. “This is me asking nice, kid.” He felt Nora behind him, watching him. He increased the pressure on Stain’s neck, just a little.

He didn’t like this part. Given the choice, he would much rather work out differences with a nice chat over cigarettes and scotch. But violence was the only language some people spoke out here, and so he’d reluctantly become fluent in it, if only ( _as he told himself_ ) to prevent further, worse violence.

“Fuck off, synth freak.” Nick’s knee came up, hard, into the raider’s thigh. He moved the gun in his free hand toward Stain’s temple.

“People lose teeth talking like that,” he quipped. “Wanna stick around, you’ll be polite. I’ll ask you one more time. Where’s Fowler?”

“Don’t know,” Stain snarled into Nick’s face. “Sold us out. Heard he joined the Forged.”

Nick winced, heard Nora release a sharp breath through her nose behind him. If their mark had gone to the Forged, he was most likely beyond them now, either dead or so insane he’d be better off that way.

He was about to release the raider, to give him a chance to leave peacefully before they had to kill him (he wouldn’t, they never would, but it was giving them the chance that mattered), when he saw Stain’s eyes focus on something behind him. A leer spread over the raider leader’s face. “How much for your lady friend?” he sneered. “Happy to take her off your hands for you.”

Nick stared at the man, the sneering, rotten-toothed animal whose pulse he could feel thudding under the synthetic skin of his arm. Something hot and strange rose up in him, like blood rushing to his head. _Useless_ , he thought, the word feeling strange in his head. _Showing mercy. Would they? Useless._

He thought of-- _Sarah_ \--Jenny-- _Mary_ \--and how she died-- _died like dogs_ \--at the hands of men just like this, a thousand men just like this, everywhere. He thought of the thin, pale girl, parents uncaring, brother gone, at the mercy of the wasteland. The same story, a million times. _The only thing that will protect you in this world is--_

His first punch broke Stain’s jaw. The pistol whip that followed sent the raider sprawling to the floor. He didn’t stop. It was his job, _his job to protect them_ \-- his foot connected with ribs that crunched beneath it-- _the world has it coming_ \-- someone was screaming, he was on his knees, his hands around the raider’s throat--

“ _Nick!_ ”

Then he was on his back, staring up at the sky through the holes in the ceiling. And Nora’s face, above him, white, her eyes black pits of horror, her mouth open.

He lifted his hands in front of his eyes. There was blood, blood and metal and torn skin. The hands weren’t his.

“Had it coming,” he croaked.

Everything went black.


	2. What's Past is Prologue

Machines couldn’t dream, but Kellogg could.

It was a nightmare he’d had when he was alive, though he never allowed himself to dwell on it in the waking hours. He was in a room, alone, and the door was closed, and behind the door was something that sounded like hundreds of pounding feet and thousands of screaming voices, and it wanted to come through. He reached for his gun, and found that it was gone.

He listened to the pounding and the screaming coming closer, ever closer, and waited for the door to break. It never did.

That was the worst part.

\--

“It’s not forever, Nick,” Nora said. She wouldn’t look at him.

He nodded, too fast, tapping his lit cigarette repeatedly against the edge of the ashtray. “Sure, sure. You’re close. Can’t have me slowing you down out there. Piper’ll take good care of you.”

For once, he was glad that his face didn’t always easily reflect his emotions. The thought of letting her venture into the Glowing Sea without him, where he couldn’t protect her-- _don’t flatter yourself, Valentine, she doesn’t need your protection and you don’t “let” her do anything,_ some acerbic little part of his mind pointed out-- made something in his chest seize.

He had no choice, though. He was a liability. For the hundredth time he replayed the moment he’d come back to himself in that ruined apartment, lying next to a dead raider, blood soaking into his coat and an unsettlingly blurred recollection of the events that had led up to his current state. The look in Nora’s eyes as she helped him up and checked him over had been somewhere between pity and fear, and for the first time he’d wondered if it wasn’t fear _for_ him, but fear _of_ him.

That fear was still there, in the way she averted her eyes from his face, long pale fingers fiddling with her Pip-Boy, as she told him she was leaving without him.

“You’ve got supplies?” Metal fingers tapped, tapped, tapped against the ashtray.

She gave him an exasperated look. “Power armor and a backpack full of Rad-X. We’ll be fine.”

Tap, tap, tap-- his finger caught on the edge of the tray, sending ashes cascading out onto his desk. “You think you’ve got enough Rad-X, that means you need more,” he said in a rough voice, cleaning up the mess. “Go empty out Myrna’s stock. If she gives you any trouble, tell her I threatened to hang around outside the shop, scare off all the humans.”

A ghost of a smile crossed Nora’s face, and her eyes met his for a second’s contact before she looked away again. “Sounds like extortion.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he shot back, and he could almost pretend they were back to normal, back to partners trading snappy patter-- but her eyes were still fixated on the floor in front of her, and he still couldn’t remember exactly what had happened in those muddled few minutes in the raider apartments.

She paused for a long time, biting her lip. “Nick, promise me you’ll go to Dr. Amari while I’m gone,” she said finally.

“I told you I’m fine,” he said, carefully keeping his voice light, “this old hardware’s bound to overheat sometimes--”

“Promise me.” Her voice was unexpectedly hard.

He held up his hands, placating. “Hey. I’ll go, all right? Due for a tune-up anyway.”

Nora closed her eyes and nodded. “Piper’s waiting. I’ll see you when… I’ll see you soon.” Her eyes lingered on his face for a moment, and she seemed on the verge of saying something else, perhaps even stepping forward. His fingers twitched, unconsciously starting to reach for her-- then she turned and was gone.

As goodbyes went, it hadn’t exactly been drawn-out.

Alone in the office, Nick leaned back in his chair and, not for the first time, wished he knew how to just shut down for a while. Without the interruption of sleep, hunger and other human needs, his detective’s mind could spin endlessly on a problem, and right now he had a damned big one.

It wasn’t the dead raider that had him preoccupied, though. He wasn’t thinking about dying, either. He was thinking about Nora’s eyes, and how they couldn’t look at him.

_Not immune to_ all _of those human needs, are you?_

He didn’t know where the thought, snide and sharp, came from-- it didn’t quite sound like his own internal monologue, more like something he barely remembered someone else saying to him-- but he couldn’t argue with it.

He lit up a cigarette, and thought about pouring himself a drink-- not that it would help any, but it was something to do. It was going to be a long night.

\--

“Well, if it isn’t Nick Valentine.” Irma’s smile was warm. “You’re a sight for… well. You’re a _sight_.”

“Irma. You always know just what to say.”

Nick tipped his hat, and the woman reclining in the Memory Den’s chaise lounge lifted a hand and inclined her coiffed head. It was their little ritual, a wink to the outdated manners and roles he remembered and she had studied as an aficionado of pre-war culture. Both of them, walking anachronisms. They’d always gotten along just fine.

“What brings you here, my dear detective?” she purred. “Murder and mayhem afoot?”

Nick rubbed the back of his neck with his intact hand. “Afraid it’s of a more… personal nature this time.” He had to look away from Irma’s concerned frown. “Amari in?”

“Chandra’s downstairs, as usual.” She’d dropped the flirtation, and was watching him with a look of dismay. “Nick, are you all right? I’d heard the rumors, but…”

His metal hand clenched. “What rumors?”

“Nothing, just… the Mayor mentioned you and your Vault girl just closed a _real_ cold case, and I figured it had to be something about Winter… about Jenny. Then they were saying you--” She stopped, carefully examining her nails.

“Irma?”

“That you weren’t acting right,” she said at last, worried eyes coming up to meet his. “That it was like you’d changed. I figured, well, it couldn’t have been easy for you, maybe you needed a little time to adjust. But now you’re here.”

Nick sighed. He’d known what it meant, coming here. Once upon a time, long before Nora, before the agency, he’d spent time in the Den-- a lot of time. Sorting through old Nick’s memories, getting to know the long-dead man with whom he shared the inside of his head. He’d been a little obsessed, truth be told. He hadn’t been easy to live with then, but for whatever reason the Memory Den’s odd couple had taken to him, each trying to help in their own way-- warm, friendly Irma reminiscing with him about the old days, while practical Amari worked on solutions to his identity crisis.

It was Amari who’d suggested a memory wipe, stating in her usual blunt fashion that it might be the only way to end his confusion and pain. Tired of seeing Jenny’s face every time he closed his eyes, he’d agreed. The result had been a month of his life-- _his_ , not Nick’s-- that he still couldn’t remember, and a head still full of pre-war memories. He’d wanted to press on, but Amari had insisted that further attempts might damage him irreparably and she wouldn’t have that on her conscience. Both she and Irma had laid down the law then-- he couldn’t destroy the past and he couldn’t sit in a lounger for the rest of his life reliving it, so he had to go out in the world and start learning to live with it.

Since then, he’d only been back to the Den on cases-- but Irma and Amari were among the only people who knew about the depth of his connection with old Nick, about Jenny and Eddie Winter and the whole sordid story, and he knew Irma must suspect that if he was back now and asking for help, it couldn’t mean anything good.

“Just looking for a bit of a tune-up from the good doctor,” he said aloud, keeping his voice light. “Maybe cleaning up that dirty laundry did shake something loose in the old circuits. Nothing your old lady can’t fix, I’m sure.”

Irma didn’t look convinced, but she motioned him toward the basement stairs. “See if you can’t get Chandra to come up and have some dinner, while you’re down there,” she called after him, and he smiled to himself.

Amari turned when she saw him coming down the stairs. Her only reaction was a slight lift of her left eyebrow. “Mr. Valentine. I’m sure you must need something if Irma sent you down, but I needn’t remind you that our records are still strictly confidential unless you’ve got some very concrete evidence that you should be permitted to see them.”

“Missed you too, Doc.” Despite the situation, he smirked at her familiar bluntness. “I’m not here on a case.”

Her other eyebrow lifted to meet its twin. “Then I very much hope this is a social call, because I know you’re not here to try to convince me to root about in your head again.”

“As much fun as that sounds…” Nick took a breath. “No, it’s something a little more complicated.”

He told her everything, from his first moments of feeling _off_ to the terrifying out-of-body experience in the raider lair. It felt good to admit it all to someone, everything he’d kept carefully hidden from Nora and Ellie and everyone, for their own protection ( _and his own selfishness_ ).

When he was finished, Amari pressed her lips together and regarded him with impassive eyes. “Detective Valentine was a deeply troubled man at the time of his neural scan,” she said at last, folding her hands in front of her. “Grieving, depressed, quite possibly suffering from post-traumatic stress. Along with his memories and personality, I’m afraid he left all those problems to you as well.”

Nick felt himself bristle. “You think it’s all in my head--”

Amari held up a hand. “ _Most_ things are all in our heads, Mr. Valentine. I’m not dismissing your concerns. But your symptoms, though manifesting a little differently through your unique physiology, all point to severe depression. Lethargy, lack of motivation, inability to concentrate, overall feeling of dread… even the dissociation you describe.”

Nick’s shoulders sagged, and he shook his head. “I… Doc, I’ve been low. You _know_ how low. And when Nick’s world fell apart, I remember how he felt, too. This… this is something else. With that raider kid… it wasn’t just that I wasn’t _me._ It’s like…” His voice dropped, barely audible. “Like I was someone else. Not the first time, either.”

A slight frown wrinkled the doctor’s forehead. “Yes, you said. Images, thoughts you don’t recognize. Not uncommon in a dissociative state, but… still, it does give me pause, considering…” She trailed off, and a very troubled expression crossed her face momentarily. In another moment it was gone, and she clapped her hands together, all business. “Well. I’ll run some tests. Make yourself comfortable while I calibrate the equipment.”

Settling into a nearby lounger, Nick felt a moment of relief. Either she could fix him or she couldn’t; either way, it would be over soon.

And, beneath that thought, another, almost too faint to hear: _she knows._

\--

Kellogg dreamed, and the pounding behind the door grew louder and louder.

He prepared to fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much talking. Sooooo sooooo much talking. Less talking next chapter, more mindfuck. Yes.
> 
> (Credit where credit's due: I got Amari's first name from "Something in Common," and the general idea of Nick having a past with the ladies of the Memory Den was heavily influenced by a tumblr discussion started by user yamisnuffles. Thanks guys.)


	3. Downhill, Head On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Initiating memory scan.

_Memory scan 4% complete. 0 errors found._

It is July, 2042. Nicky Valentine is eight years old. He has a plastic pistol in his hand and he squares his jaw, like the men on TV, as he points it at his playmate.

“Time’s up, wise guy,” he says.

“I want to be the detective now!” the other child shouts.

Nicky stares at him down the barrel of his plastic gun. “No,” he says. “ _I’m_ the detective.”

\--

_Memory scan 10% complete. 0 errors found._

It is March, 2055. A letter arrives in the mail for Nick Valentine shortly after his twenty-first birthday.

_“Dear Mr. Valentine: we are pleased to inform you of your acceptance into the BADTFL Training Academy--”_

He feels like he can breathe again, for the first time in weeks.

\--

_Memory scan 12% complete. 0 errors found._

It is May, 2069. Detective Nicholas Valentine opens the door to Benson’s Jewelers and tips his hat to the pretty brown-eyed girl behind the glass counters. He hopes he won’t have to put the screws to her too badly. Her boss may have been smuggling Myanmar rubies and dabbling in the drug trade, but _she_ looks sweet enough. Benson is probably playing her for a sap as much as anyone else, he thinks, looking into her open, friendly face.

“Can I help you?” she asks. Her nametag says _Jenny._

An hour later, she is flashing him a brilliant smile as she hands over a folder full of receipts, ticket stubs, ledgers and notes that would, in the end, bring Benson and his whole smuggling ring to justice.

He will never underestimate her again.

\--

_Memory scan 17% complete. 0 errors found._

It is January, 2070. Nick Valentine, off-duty, is sitting in a sandwich shop, across from a brown-eyed woman with an open, friendly face. She is telling him about her new mystery novel idea. Jennifer Lands owns Benson’s Jewelers now, but what she really wants to do is write about hard-boiled men of justice and the dames who love them.

“How about _They Die at Dawn_ , for a title,” she says, with a grin. “Or, oh! _Death Comes at Dawn._ ”

Nick raises an eyebrow. “Death gets up early.”

“ _Nicky._ ” She smiles a fond smile at him and he thinks, cannot help but think, how much he loves the way her eyes sparkle. He loves a lot of things about her, but she is not his, not yet. Jenny is the kind of girl who takes her time, likes to be sure about things.

“It’s great, doll,” he says. “ _You’ll_ be great.”

\--

_Memory scan 22% complete. 0 errors found._

It is November, 2071. Nick Valentine stands in the doorway of Jenny’s apartment, feeling overdressed, carrying a bouquet of flowers. She has just sold her first book. It will be published under the name Vivian Jansen, which she has decided is far more glamorous than her own.

Jenny opens the door, her eyes alight. She grabs him by the tie and pulls him inside, and then she kisses him, hard. He drops the bouquet.

She is sure about him now.

\--

_Memory scan 30% complete. 0 errors found._

It is October, 2075. Nick Valentine sits in an uncomfortable plastic chair with five of his squadmates, listening to his new captain.

“Welcome to the task force,” Widmark says. “Operation Winter's End starts now. With you. Together, we will knock Eddie Winter off his throne and dump his sorry ass in a 2000-volt easy chair.”

Nick straightens out his back. He feels his heart hammer, eager for the chase. There is no shiver, no chill in his blood at the sound of the man’s name. He does not know what is coming.

\--

_Memory scan 36% complete. 456 errors found. Analyzing--_

It is August, 2189. Nick Valentine has been dead for nearly a century.

A young boy’s mother hands him a gun, her mouth twisted in a bitter smile.

_Analyzing--_

It is March, 2206. A woman and her child have been murdered.

Nick Valentine falls to his knees, a mournful cry on his lips.

Nick Valentine is not there. Nick Valentine is dead.

_Memory corrupted. Quarantining file for repair. Continue scan y/n?_

\--

_Memory scan 40% complete. 0 errors found._

It is June, 2076. Detective Nicholas Valentine opens the door to Benson’s Jewelers and tips his hat to the pretty brown-eyed girl behind the glass counters. (Jenny spends most of her time working on her second novel these days, but she still works a shift or two at the shop every week-- the people-watching improves her dialogue, she says.)

She smiles warmly at him. “Nicky! I wasn’t expecting you until later.”

“Ma’am,” he says with a nod, feigning formality. “Heard this is the best jewelry shop in town. I’m going to need the assistance of an _expert._ ”

Jenny lifts an eyebrow and smirks at him. “I’d be happy to help, _Detective._ ”

He nods thoughtfully, pretends to study the watches and necklaces in the nearest case. “There’s this girl, see.”

“Oh, I see.” He doesn’t look up, but he can hear the grin in her voice.

“Real upstanding dame. Beautiful, whip-smart. No idea why she looked twice at me. But one thing led to another and, long story short, I got a question for her. The _biggest_ question.” He hears her slight intake of breath, and looks up into her shining eyes.

“Don’t suppose you sell rings here, do you? Of the diamond variety?”

\--

_Memory scan 47% complete. 0 errors found._

It is January, 2077. Nick Valentine leans back in his chair in the interrogation room, sleeves rolled up, arms crossed. “I’ve got all night, pal-- but how about we skip the sleepover and you tell me what you know about Winter?”

On the other side of the table, O’Malley stares him down with a smirk. His eyes are cold and without fear. ”You ain’t got nothin’ on us, coppa.”

Nick sighs, makes a show of checking his watch. “Same old tune, O’Malley. Getting tired of hearing you sing it. Change the station, huh?”

“You really have no idea what you’re dealing with, do you?” O’Malley laughs. “Say hello to that pretty doll of yours for me tonight.”

He’s still laughing when they haul him back to his cell.

\--

_Memory scan 54% complete. [unknown] errors found. Analyzing…_

It is October, 2077. Nick Valentine paces by the phone, an icy pit in his stomach. Jenny is not at the shop. Jenny is not at her apartment or her mother’s house. He has no idea where Jenny is.

The phone rings.

_No, that’s not the way it happened, is it?_

It is October, 2077. Nick Valentine and Jenny Lands are walking home from the movies, holding hands, chatting about the film (he liked it, she didn’t).

A shadow moves out of a nearby alley. A shot rings out.

_You were there, weren’t you? You were there and you could have saved her. You could have taken the bullet._

_It could have been you who died. It_ should _have been you._

_Analyzing…_

It is October, 2077. Nick Valentine opens the door to Benson’s Jewelers and tips his hat to the pretty brown-eyed girl behind the glass counters.

She opens her mouth to speak. No sound comes out. She clutches her chest, and blood blossoms red across her white blouse.

_Analyzing…_

It is March, 2206. A woman and her child have been murdered.

_It should have been_ you.

Nick Valentine stares at his hands, covered in blood, and falls to his knees.

Nick Valentine has been dead for a century.

_Memory corrupted._

_Memory corrupted._

_Abort, Retry, Fail?_

\--

Nick Valentine stares at the ceiling, an empty bottle falling from his numb fingers. He has no idea what month it is, no idea how much time has passed. The apartment is dark and cluttered, strewn with discarded clothing, half-read books, remnants of meals eaten cold with a chaser of whiskey. The ashtray, overturned, slowly spills ashes onto the floor.

Somewhere in the city, Eddie Winter laughs and sips expensive wine purchased on the BADTFL’s dime. Somewhere in the city, Eddie Winter’s thugs shake down another victim.

Somewhere in the city, Jennifer Lands lies still and cold in her grave, her pretty brown eyes closed. She will never write another word.

And here, here in the city, Nick Valentine has nothing left.

_What a tragedy._

The voice in his head startles him. He sits up. His head swims. He holds up his hands and sees that one is bare, skeletal, mechanical.

_Should I pity you, detective? So you lost your girl. At least you never had the chance to lose your wife, your kid._

Somewhere in the city-- in another city, in another time-- a woman and her child have been murdered.

There is something on the other side of the door. Something pounding, shaking the floor.

Nick Valentine closes his eyes and waits.

\--

“Oh, _Nicky._ ”

He opens his eyes. The dark, cluttered apartment is gone. He is whole and human again, in the park where he and Jenny had their first date, and she is there and alive and warm in his arms.

“You were miles away, weren’t you?” She smiles up at him, traces his jaw with a manicured fingernail.

“Jenny.” His voice sounds raw, hoarse and cracked. “I thought…”

“Just a bad dream, Nicky.” She kisses him, slow and promising. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows this is wrong. The man she’s kissing isn’t him, has never been him. But he’s so tired, and it’s been so long, and so his hands, human, intact, slide up her back and press her into him, and his mouth opens hungrily to her, and for a sweet moment he is lost in pleasure and need.

When he pulls away for breath, Nora’s dark eyes burn into his, her long pale fingers clutching at the lapels of his coat. “ _Valentine_ ,” she breathes.

He groans, his hands tangling in her smooth, glossy black hair, and presses into her with lips and teeth and tongue and hips-- but his body isn’t responding like it should, sharp bright bursts of sensation replaced by cold streams of data, his racing human heart becoming a whirring, churning motor, until even the burning warmth of her lips falls away.

He watches her face twist with disgust as she pulls away. “You’re not him,” she says. “You’re not even _human_.”

Memories wash over him-- newer memories, _his_ memories, memories of waking up alone and broken in the wrong body and the wrong world, of fighting for every scrap of respect and acceptance he could find, of all the other faces that had looked at him with disgust-- and he closes his eyes ( _his core processor sending a message to his optics to shut down, diverting memory away from his visual stimulus interpretation subroutines-- even in pain, he is a machine_ ).

When he opens them again, there is a gun at Nora’s head.

“Valentine,” Kellogg says. His posture is easy, almost relaxed, as he rests the gun against her temple. “Remember me?”

\--

_Abort, Retry, Fail?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tried something a bit experimental with this chapter. I hope this little surrealistic trip through Nick's memories and insecurities was enlightening. If not, no worries, we're back to a more straightforward narrative style next chapter. :)
> 
> I'd like to thank Dave and SP for beta-reading. Love you guys. <3


	4. Faulty Wiring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eyyyyy guess what isn't dead? Kellogg! Also, this fic!
> 
> I was struggling with some pretty bad block on this chapter for a while, but I finally pushed past it. This is Where It Starts to Get Weird.

_“You’re dead,” Nick says._

_“So are you,” Kellogg retorts, “and yet. Here we are.”_

\--

The terminal flashed, error messages flickering wildly across the screen in alarming red. Dr. Chandra Amari’s fingers flew over the keyboard, the clicking of keys providing a driving backbeat to the alarm’s shrill solo.

_Damn it, Valentine,_ she thought, the tightening of her lips the only visible sign of the despair settling in her stomach. _I was always afraid it’d end like this._

\--

_Nick knows it’s all wrong because Nora is too still, too silent, her dark eyes wide and pleading, a caricature of the damsel in distress. His Nora would be fighting, with fire in her eyes. His Nora had killed this man once, and would never let him hold her like this, blunt fingers digging into the pale flesh of her arm, the barrel of his pistol casually nudging her temple._

_“She’s not_ yours _, Valentine,” Kellogg sneers. Nick blinks and it’s Jenny, there with the gun to her head, and her soft brown eyes are asking him how he could have let her die._

_“Nothing’s ever been yours. Anything you ever had, you_ stole.”

\--

The lights flickered. For a moment, Amari was afraid the system would overload entirely, plunging the whole place into darkness. She pleaded with some nameless deity for just a few minutes more, just a little more time to comb through and untangle the snarled strands of Nick Valentine’s mind.

In the lounger, Valentine’s body shuddered, his robotic face etched with pain. She wondered if he was dreaming.

\--

_Kellogg pushes the woman roughly to the ground-- Nick can no longer tell if it is Nora or Jenny, her features blurred, her skin changing-- and points the gun down at her crumpled form._

_“Even this body’s not yours,” he says. “Not anymore.”_

_His finger tightens on the trigger._

_As the gunshot rings out, and Nick dives toward him, the world shatters into white._

_\--_

Heart in her throat, Amari’s eyes scanned the text scrolling across the terminal. 

Slowly the flashing messages winked out. The alarm screamed once more and then fell quiet, leaving the air heavy with silence.

_Come on, Valentine._

With a sudden, golden flash, inside the lounger, Nick Valentine’s eyes snapped open.

\--

“I’m telling you, I feel fine now,” Nick said, and it almost wasn’t a lie. The cigarette in his hand was steady. He inhaled deeply, enjoying the familiar, comforting way the acrid smoke lit up the taste sensors inside his mouth. He wondered if he was imagining the quicker response of his system to the stimulus, the smooth clarity of the sensation. 

“As a doctor, _I’m_ telling _you_ that there’s no way I can recommend you leaving,” Amari snapped. “And as a _friend--_ ” She took a deep breath. “Whatever happened to you-- whatever Kellogg _left behind_ , it nearly knocked out _our_ systems, let alone yours.”

“And thanks to those quick fingers of yours, it’s gone now.” He gestured to the terminal, his fingers brushing across the cables that ran between the machine and his head. “Your scans aren’t showing anything out of the ordinary now, are they? You’ve run them about twelve times each. Can I put my hat back on, at least?”

Amari sighed, beginning to pluck the sensors off of Nick’s head and neck. “You appear to be in working order now,” she admitted. “But there’s no precedent for this. I-- still cannot explain what happened. Even in my work with far more advanced generation 3 systems--” she ignored Nick’s exaggerated wince-- “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Well, I’ve never popped part of a dead man’s brain into my head before.” Nick replaced his hat and took a long, satisfying drag of his cigarette. “Occupational hazard.”

Amari glared at him. “You shouldn’t be smoking that in here,” she said, but the grudging tone in her voice told him he’d won, for now.

“Look, doc, you really saved my bacon there,” he said, voice softening, as they moved toward the stairs. “You don’t know how-- hell, how _scared_ I was that this old body was finally giving up the ghost.”

Amari looked sour. “You still don’t--” she began.

Nick held up a hand. “I know, I know-- you’d rather keep me here, keep an eye on me. But I’ve got to get back to the city. There are… people relying on me.” Amari looked ready to argue further, but he shook his head. “If I feel so much as a wire out of place, I’ll head right back. Promise.”

“Finally! Is someone going to fill me in on what’s going on here?” Irma was out of her chair, hands on hips and fire in her eyes, as they reached the top of the stairs. “Like a god-forsaken light show! I nearly had a heart attack and all you can say is ‘not now, Irma’?”

“I’ll let you ladies talk,” Nick said, slipping smoothly toward the door before either woman could intercept him. “Thanks again, doc. ‘Night, Irma.” He left a small bag of caps on the table by the door-- he knew they’d make their way back to him somehow, his money was never any good in the Memory Den, but he had to try.

Goodneighbor was quiet as he stepped out into the night, with only the faint pops and shouts of a distant brawl disrupting the silence. He took a deep breath. Even the air tasted wonderful. 

Nothing made you feel alive, he thought, like spending some time worrying you wouldn’t be very soon.

He felt a bit silly, now, for worrying as much as he had. If he’d just gone to Amari right away, he’d have saved himself and everyone ( _Nora_ ) a lot of trouble. Of course his system was a little out of whack after the crazy stunt they’d pulled, using him to dig through the echoes of Kellogg’s memories-- but that’s all it had been. An echo.

\--

_Oh, Valentine,_ said a low, rough voice in his head. _You don’t think you’re that lucky, do you?_

\--

He didn’t entirely remember how he made it back to his office. One moment he was standing on trembling legs in Goodneighbor’s main square, listening to a dead man’s voice in his head; the next, he was leaned over his desk, hands flat on the wood, an unkind laughter echoing in his mind.

_Get out,_ he thought. _Get_ out. _You’re dead._

_No more dead than you,_ said Kellogg’s impossible voice.

“This isn’t happening,” Nick said aloud, to the dark, empty office. “No way in hell is this happening.”

_And here I thought you were a detective. Put all the clues together, Valentine._

“Damn it,” he growled, digging his fingers into the wood of his desk to stop his hands shaking. _“Damn_ it.”

Amari was right. They hadn’t fixed what was wrong with him-- not even close. He had to go back. Run more tests, try something different. Hell, shut him down until they could figure something out. He thought of Nora, of letting the man who’d destroyed her family stroll around in his skin, and his coolant ran cold. He had to get back to Goodneighbor--

_Here’s how it’s going to be, Valentine._

He couldn’t move.

_Despite what you and your lady friend think of me, I’m not unreasonable._ Kellogg’s voice was serious now, losing its mocking edge. _I’m not about to go on some sort of killing spree. You don’t need to worry about that._

“Consider me reassured,” Nick snapped. He wasn’t sure why he was still speaking aloud, talking to an empty room. Maybe he just needed to hear his own voice, needed to know he was still _himself._

_All this time you thought you were dying. This should be a relief to you. Is sharing a brain with me really a fate worse than death?_

He was baiting Nick, and Nick knew it. He kept his mouth clamped firmly shut.

_Anyway, I don’t mean to be a rude houseguest, but I do have some conditions._

Nick gritted his teeth.

_One of those conditions is that you’re not going anywhere near that Amari woman again. She’s smart, and I think maybe she_ could _figure out how to get rid of me for real. And that’s not on my agenda. So no more trips to the doctor._

“Hell with you--” Nick tried to move again, but found himself rooted to his seat, his servos refusing to respond. He cursed, sagging back into the chair.

_Don’t be a pain in the ass, Valentine._ Kellogg’s voice was sharp, making his head ache.

“And?” Nick growled, head in his hands.

_And what?_

“Your _conditions._ ” He spat the word. “What else?”

_Glad you’re listening. I don’t actually want to make this painful for you, but I will if I have to._ He could see the mercenary’s face in his head, see his cold eyes narrow as he considered his next words.

_I had orders when your girl killed me. An assignment._ Kellogg paused. _Maybe you don’t think it matters anymore. Maybe you’re right. But I don’t leave jobs unfinished-- not even jobs for those Institute bastards._

“Not doing your dirty work,” Nick gritted out.

_We’ll see. Thing is, there might be something in it for you._ The voice was amused again. _If we leave now we can catch up to her, you know. You don’t have to eat or sleep-- she does. And you’d just love to rush in and save her, be her knight in shining armor, wouldn’t you?_

Nick felt a hot surge of rage in his chest. “Don’t you say a damn thing about her,” he hissed into the darkness.

_Come off it, Valentine. She’s no saint. What’s her body count up to these days, anyway? Probably rivaling mine._

“Shut. Up.” Nick’s hand was moving, almost before he realized what he was doing. His metal fingers brushed the torn edges of the skin below his jaw.

_The two of you, acting like you really believe you can clean this place up. As if this world isn’t fucked up beyond repair already. A traumatized woman and a broken machine aren’t going to change that._

Nick’s fingers slipped into the hole in his neck. Pushing past the vertiginous nausea he always felt when forced to acknowledge that parts of his body were _missing_ , injured in ways that the old Nick couldn’t have survived, he curled his fingers around the wires that led from his core processor out to the sensors in the rest of his body. “I said _shut up._ ”

_What are you going to do, unplug us? I can stop you._

“Can you? It’ll only take a second.” He tightened his fingers on the bundle of wires in emphasis. “Sooner or later you’ll let your guard down for a second.”

_Go ahead._ His hand jerked downward, not of his own accord, making him cry out as a sudden jolt of pain radiated out to his sensors. Nothing broke, but the wires were tight between his fingers, strumming and trembling like violin strings.

“What-- _nnngh--_ what will happen to _you_ if I take myself offline, huh?” Nick managed through the pulses of pain. He felt the situation spiraling quickly out of his control as Kellogg manipulated his fingers, but it was the thought of Nora, of _Kellogg hurting Nora_ , that kept him focused. He could not let that happen. He would die first, and as long as that was true, he had the upper hand.

Kellogg’s laugh echoed through his skull, sending pain blossoming through his head. _So chivalrous, Valentine. Can’t bear the thought of anyone laying a hand on your precious Nora._ His voice turned sly. _Except… you want to lay your hands on her pretty thoroughly, don’t you?_

Nick felt his coolant pump stutter in his chest. He felt Kellogg’s fingers in his brain, rooting through his thoughts like they were case files, pulling images from the depths of his mind. Images that got him through the long nights, but were never meant to see the light of day. Nora on his desk, skirt hiked up, slowly uncrossing her legs. Nora in his lap, slowly sliding her blouse off her shoulders onto the floor. Nora on her knees, a handful of her hair twisted in his fingers as she--

“ _Stop._ ” His voice came out more like a whimper than a command, his senses overwhelmed and overloaded by the fingers at his neck and the shame and desire from all the thoughts he never should have let himself have about his partner. He had no right to imagine her like that, out of context and out of character, the femme fatale archetype in his hard-boiled detective novel, pupils blown and groaning his name through red lips as he took her on his desk, in his bed, against the wall--

He wasn’t sure whose fingers were tugging at the wires now, sparking the sensors with pain-pleasure, threatening to overload his system entirely. It was beyond both of them, perhaps, the rising of something repressed so long it had taken on a life of its own. His other hand gripped the arm of his chair so hard that it splintered beneath his fingers. 

A brilliant red engulfed his vision and then faded to black as his visual sensors crashed, only the beginning of a cascade of glitches and errors and resets that sent him and Kellogg both floating away on a sea of white static.

The last thing he saw in his mind’s eye before his system crashed entirely was Nora, not a fantasy but a memory, smiling gently at him as he drifted away.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this is a thing I'm doing now. I've been wanting to tackle this particular plot hook for a while. I have Plans for this, but we'll see if I can actually pull any of them off. The rating will definitely increase and things might get Questionable. Be warned.
> 
> Also, soundtrack to this chapter/possibly the whole work: Bullets by Archive. The perfect Nickellogg song.


End file.
